Any professional photographer knows that the external hard drives are the best, especially when it comes to backing up and saving your picture. Here are few tips how to save your pictures by using external hard drives. In case you think this is going to be a long process, you are wrong.

One of the most important steps is to check the capacity of your hard drive. This simply means you need to know how much information can be held in your device, as well as your memory card or your computer hard drive does.

Many people are choosing to purchase some cheap 1TB, but there is a hidden risk, because the lower capacity isn’t recommended.

The professionals are using 250GB, which is enough capacity and it is praised as the best. The reason is that is able to store nearly 80 000 images with all kind of resolution. Don’t forget the fact, that despite you are choosing 250 GB, at least 30GB of them will be used for pre-installed files, virus protection and software actions.

This means you can’t be sure about the exact space of the hard drives. Another important issue is the connectivity. USB is the preferable way for many photographers, because it is all automatic and it is easy to deal with, but FireWire is better, because it is faster than USB. Of course speed is also a factor to consider. The speed is quantified in rotations per minute RPM and if you think this isn’t very important, you will probably be wrong.

The most common RPM is 5400, which is typical for all kind of devices and it is preferable, because it is fast. The speed of the upload is also very important.

Choose devices with 100 megabytes per second, for they are preferable, when it comes to fast uploading. The buffer is also a factor. The experts are advising you to go choose external devices with a buffer of 8MB or 16MB, because if the buffer is larger, the information flow will be smoother.

It is also important to purchase external hard drives with specific software that includes virus protection. The compatibility with your computer is also a must. Make sure the hard drives come with a warranty, in order to prevent any kind of accidents.
The other factors that you should consider before choosing an external device aren’t of the biggest importance, when it comes to the quality, but the design of your external device is also a point of personal view. Many photographers are using external hard drives in their favorite color and this is turning to be a part of their signature.